Hurricane Helene ripped through the Southeast United States, leaving devastation, heartbreak and chaos in her wake that residents haven’t felt in generations.
This weekend, I realized that as important as pictures and videos are in getting the rest of the country to care, they can only convey a small fraction of what’s going on, and what’s being experienced.
When I’d seen pictures and videos in the past of people’s ruined belongings piled outside of their homes, I thought, “wow, it sucks they lost so much.” But it’s so much deeper than it looks from the sidewalk.
When a house is standing, and you see stuff piled at the curb, it looks like while they may have lost some things, they got to keep what mattered. But oftentimes, the mountains of trash you see lining the streets aren’t the only ones people will be forced to put out. They don’t just lose a few prized possessions, a few pieces of furniture, a few things that were lying on the floor. They lose almost everything. And try as we might to believe we’re above material attachment, we have a lot of memories and emotions tied to things we’ve bought.
A lot of people try to put on a brave face – even among trusted friends and family. They say things along the lines of, “it’s just stuff, we’re lucky to be alive.” But if you’re really paying attention, it seems like they’re trying to convince themselves. The shock lasts for days. They look at these homes that they’ve built in ruins, covered in filth, and they don’t know where to start. They struggle processing exactly what it is they’re going through and find themselves overwhelmed and unconsolable without warning as they remember what’s happened and what’s ahead.
Even when houses look like they’ll survive, there’s a possibility that the structural damage is too pronounced for longterm salvaging, and lifelong homes will be condemned and demolished. There’s a chance that good, honest people will be cheated and hung out to dry by the insurance companies that they paid for years in anticipation of a time like this.
I saw it up close and personal this weekend, and it’s tragic.
If you spent any time on social media, there’s a chance you saw people insisting that this kind of suffering could have been prevented by taking “climate change” more seriously.
I’m not here to say whether or not human activity has contributed to an increase in frequency or severity of natural disasters.
I think people should know that the politicians that pretend to care most about the issue are using it as an excuse to exert more control over our lives and increase their revenue, that our efforts are completely useless until countries like China get on board with “green initiatives,” that very little of what climate alarmists predicted has ever come true.
But that’s not my point.
I cried a lot this weekend for the people affected by this hurricane. And not those silent #demure tears either. The kind where I felt my forehead wrinkling and lost my breath and had to blow my nose.
My heart is breaking for my neighbors, for Florida, and for the southeast in a way it never has, because while I wasn’t personally affected and this isn’t my first hurricane, it’s the first time I’m experiencing a life-shattering natural disaster in real life and not behind a phone screen.
And it’s never been more clear to me that anyone who thinks this pain can be legislated away doesn’t understand human nature.
There are things that governments and politicians can do to prepare for emergencies, and try to mitigate the effects of massive storms.
But one of the many flaws of leftism is that they fundamentally misunderstand the human condition.
To live is to suffer, and to suffer is to live. But leftism assumes that the suffering that defines the human condition can be abolished via policy, and in their pursuit of a utopia that can’t exist on this side of life, they only create more suffering.
They want to save the climate, so they increase our dependence on a hostile foreign super power to mine batteries for electric vehicles – while also generating more pollution. They want to end bigotry, so they create draconian censorship laws and “diversity” initiatives, only for them to breed more hatred, prejudice and resentment. They want to help the homeless, and end up making world class cities unlivable, lining the streets with tents, needles and human feces. They want to rescue the third world, so they open the floodgates to millions of unvetted migrants from all over the globe, subjecting their own citizens to violence, crime and degradation they never should have known.
Of course, elected officials should want to improve the lives of their constituents. Of course, we should have compassion for our fellow man.
But when they don’t understand that hardship isn’t something that can be banned in a government building with the right signatures or endorsements, they’re incapable of fulfilling any of their promises, and will likely cause more problems than they solve for the people they govern.
I’ve probably hurt more this year than I have in my adult life. I remember when I was working at White House | Black Market in college, and a customer in a fitting room getting a call and breaking down in the most guttural, feral sob I’ve ever heard. No one, including the managers a decade older than me, knew what to do. We wondered if someone died. I remember thinking about the sounds she was making, and the grief she must’ve been in, and not being able to understand it…until this year.
For the first time in my life, I cried like her. And for a long time, I wasn’t just mad at God, I was furious.
And I know how hard it can be to reconcile a God that claims to love you with an agony you’ve never experienced, and that you can’t make sense of. I know what it’s like to feel like God either hates you, or doesn’t care.
But He allowed Joseph’s own brothers to sell him into slavery, to make him second in command to Pharaoh. He let Job lose everything, so that He could double it later. He God allowed His own Son to endure a brutal and violent crucifixion so that mankind could be saved, and raised Him from the tomb three days later.
And of course, not all of our lives will end in victory or vindication. Jesus’s disciples died cruel and vicious deaths for their testimonies.
But without suffering, I don’t know if we can truly know God or have a meaningful relationship with Him – because until we’re in pain, our faith in Him can never be adequately tested.
If you’ve had your life turned upside down by this hurricane, and lost everything you’ve worked for, I hope you know that the American people empathize with you, they’re praying for you and they will find a way to help you whether or not this “administration” does.
You may not want to hear it right now – and I wouldn’t blame you.
But even when it seems like God has abandoned you, He has always loved you and He always will. And in your affliction, there’s an opportunity to grow closer to Him than you ever could have without what it is you’re going through.
what do you think?